Drouin (including Bunyip and Tynong North)
Important service centre in West Gippsland
Drouin is 97 km south-east of Melbourne via the
Princes Highway. Its principal industries are
dairying, grazing and timber, although potatoes
and apples are grown and eggs are produced.
Local factories produce lingerie, butter and
cheese, steel pipes, plastic, and powdered milk.
The town developed after the arrival of the
railway at the end of the 1870s. There is some
dispute over the origins of the name. Some
sources claim that it derives from a Frenchman
who invented a chlorination process for
extracting metals from ore. Others suggest that
its source is an Aboriginal word meaning 'north
wind'.
The famous Australian boxer, Lionel Rose,
grew up in a humpy settlement called Jackson's
Track, 5 km from the town. 10 km away, on the
Tarago River, is a pleasant park called Glen
Cromie. West along the Princes Highway are
Longwarry, a farming area with a sawmill and
milk products factory.
Things to see:
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Bunyip
Bunyip, a dairy town with apple and pear
orchards and potatoes, shares its name with a
nearby river. It had its origins in a sheep
property established in 1851, named Buneep
Buneep or Bunyip Bunyip, presumably after the
famous Aboriginal swamp creature.
Garfield
A little further west is Garfield, an
agricultural, dairying, fruit and potato town.
Nearby Cannibal Creek Lookout has views across
to Phillip Island, as well as walking tracks, a
barbecue and some attractive flora.
Tynong North
Another 5 km along the highway is Tynong North
which possesses the Gumbaya Recreation and
Leisure Park, a bushland area which sports an
aviary, an indoor plant nursery, a wildlife
reserve with kangaroos, wallabies and emus ,
Aboriginal artefacts, a pheasant farm and bush
walks. Nearby is Victoria's Farm Shed, with
sheep shearing, milking and sheepdog
demonstrations and a cattle and sheep parade.
